For its 50th anniversary last year, the Philadelphia Folk Festival had some of the biggest performers names in the genreperform — Arlo Guthrie, David Bromberg, Tom Paxton, Tom Rush and Doc Watson and Levon Helm, who both passed away this year.

So organizers say they didn’t want to try to compete with this year’s lineup.

“We’ve been calling this the first annual Philadelphia Folk Festival, presenting 50 years of folk”, said Lisa Schwartz, marketing chairwoman and president of Philadelphia Folksongcq Society, which presents the annual festival at Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township, Montgomery County.

“We felt that last year’s 50th celebration was so special, we didn’t want to even try to top it.”

But apparently organizers couldn’t help themselves.

The lineup for this year’s three-day festival, which kicked off Thursday with a camper’s preview night and gets into full swing today Friday Aug. 17, is equally exceptional.

Each day has about two dozen performances. Five-time Grammy Award-winner Mary Chapin Carpenter performs today Friday. The Secret Sisters and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue play on Sunday.

That lineup is so talent-heavy that the festival has jettisoned its normal Saturday schedule of marquee concerts split by a dinner break in favor of playing straight through — eight hours of non-stop headliners, Schwartz says.

Festival Artistic Director Jesse Lundy says the festival reduced the number of performers by a few to give each artist more time — not just to play, but also to open the possibility for the collaborations that have been a trademark of the festival.

“Collaboration will once again be the key,” said Richard Kardon, also an artistic director. “This lineup offers incredible opportunities.”

Lundy notes that Hiatt and Earle actually have been touring together. Williams has frequently played with both Jackson and Earle.

“And the Little Feat guys are notoriously game for anything,” Lundy says. “Those guys just want to play.”

She says organizers knew the 50th year “was going to be so special — just the definition of it being the 50th was extraordinary. We sat down and said, ‘There’s no possible way to play ‘Can you top this?’”

She says she also refused to accept the idea it would be a “hangover” year, and instead used it as an opportunity to change things up a bit. Among the goals was to continue to make the event attractive to a younger audience.

“Nothing we’ve done is radical,” Schwartz says. “We decided to make touches around the edges that would just make it a little different. It’s kind of like giving things a little upgrade.”

To that end, the lineup includes Debo Band, a nine-piece that matches Ethiopian polyrhythms with classic American soul and funk music. Also in the lineup is Hillbenders, a young bluegrass band competing this season on the NBC-TV show “America’s Got Talent.”

Even headliner Jackson was booked after seeing her with hot rockabilly singer Imelda May at Philadelphia’s Trocadero Theatre a year ago, Lundy says. “Wanda’s like a heritage act,” he says. “She was groundbreaking for women, and rock ’n’ roll, really.”

He said the Holmes Brothers were booked with the intent of having them do a Sunday gospel show, which they will.

Lundy says Hiatt and Earle were offered to the festival as a package, and were even more attractive because Hiatt has never played the event. The last time Earle did, in 2008, it was as a solo act.

Lundy says the idea of Little Feat came up because he’s often said, “only half-joking, that Philly Folk Fest fans also are classic rock fans. They’ve been part of the whole scene. If you go in to the campgrounds, you hear people singing [the Little Feat song] ‘Willin’ all night. So we thought that would be perfect.”

After the booking was done, Lundy says, the festival got a call from Williams’ booking agent, looking to fill a date.

“The person said Saturday would be perfect,” Lundy says. “We were out of money, but thought, ‘We have to do this.’ “

The festival — which calls itself the largest, continuously running outdoor musical event in its kind in North America — will have continuous musical performances on multiple stages, workshops, showcases and other events.

There will be children’s activities in the shaded area between the Crafts Stage and the Camp Stage, with puppeteers, jugglers, storytellers, crafts and kid-oriented musicians.

And one element of the festival that seems to never change — host Gene Shay. The Philadelphia radio station WXPN-FM personality is returning for his 51st year. Shay helped put together the first festival and is called the “Godfather of Philadelphia Folk Music.”

Schwartz says the lineup is one “we’re extraordinarily proud of. There really is something for everyone this year. [But] we’re not going to change, we’re still going the festival that you love.”

Organizers say that while hard work goes into the lineup, there’s tremendous help from coincidence. “It’s the perfect storm – and we acknowledge it as such,” Schwartz says.

JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.